Anyone who has grown carrots knows that many of the carrots are lost to thinning. With seeds as tiny as carrot seeds are, it is difficult to handle them and space them out when planting. Even if great care is taken not to plant too many in one area, you might wait only to find large spaces in your row with no carrot sprouts at all. If they do sprout close together they are difficult to thin out without removing and killing more than you need to in order to thin. But, there is a method to plant carrots that, if done correctly, doesn’t require thinning.
- Get a container like a clean glass jar for each variety of carrot that you will be planting. Don’t mix varieties since they may germinate at different times.
- Pour some seeds into each container, you don’t need to pour in the whole packet, one of the points of this method is to conserve seeds.
- Add enough water to thoroughly soak the seeds, but not enough so much that they are floating around in inches of water.
- Cover with the lid on loosely and place in a warm area that doesn’t get direct sunlight. Check the containers daily, opening them and allowing them to vent. In just a few days you should see a root begin to sprout out. Look closely because they will be small and you want to get them when they have just started to appear.
- When the seeds have sprouted you will need to make a planting gel for them, the purpose of the gel is to keep space between the seeds. To make the gel simply heat cornstarch in water until it takes on a gelatinous consistency, then allow it to cool down so that it does not kill the seeds.
- Once it has cooled, add a little water to the sprouted seeds so that you can swirl it around, collecting all the seeds, and then pour it into the gel.
- Being very careful so that you do not damage the sprouted root (this is also why it is important to catch them before they grow too long) mix the seeds throughout the gel.
- Pour the gel with the sprouts into a plastic bag and cut one bottom corner off. This will allow you to use the bag like a pastry chef and spread out the gel in a shallow trench (1/2 inch or less).
- Cover the gel containing the sprouts lightly with soil and water carefully with a fine light spray or mist.
I hope this method helps to save you money on seeds and delivers a great harvest for you.
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